During the 2002-2003 academic year the Language Voluntariate
has consolidated and reinforced its role as a welcoming and linguistic
and cultural exchange programme between Catalan and exchange students,
with a regular programme of outings and activities throughout
the academic year and a conversation exchange offer. These activities
share the two-fold objective of fostering the integration of foreign
students to Catalan language, culture and society and encouraging
the internationalisation of Catalan students.
In the field of cultural activities, the main are the
following:
·
Guided tours around Barcelona: two around the “Quadrat d’Or” (Eixample
district), two around the Gothic quarter, two around La Ribera
quarter, a visit to the Museum of History of the City, one around
the Raval quarter, and one to the premises of the Institute for
Catalan Studies, the Catalan language academy.
·
Guided tours around the rest of Catalonia: one around historical and monumental Girona, one around
Roman and medieval Tarragona, one around Modernist Reus, one around
Sitges, one around Vic, one around Figueres and the Dalí Museum,
and a naturalistic one around the Collserola Park, the mountains
north-east of Barcelona.
In the field of playful activities, the main are the
following: a weekly meeting point at a bar in the city, the yearly
welcoming party, two night-tours around old Barcelona, the chestnut
festivity in a cottage in central Catalonia, two ski excursions
to Andorra, on-site attendance to the Catalan Television shaw
Una altra cosa, an outing to the cinema and the end-of-year dinner
of language volunteers.
As far as conversation exchange is concerned, we launched
the campaign “Aprčn llengües... de gorra! / Learn or improve
your Catalan... and get a cap!”, aimed at promoting conversation
exchange between UPF and exchange students, which offered a beautiful
cap of the Language Voluntariate to those students becoming conversation
exchange partners. As a result of this campaign there has been
a significant increase in the number of students enrolled at the
conversation exchange list —with over two-hundred students
mainly offering Catalan and/or Spanish in exchange of almost twenty
other languages— and the making-up of some fifty conversation
exchange couples.
Finally, during this academic year an ideas contest for
the welcoming of exchange students has been proposed, the aim
being to invigorate the Language Voluntariate and to take advantage
of both the experience of UPF students having been exchange students
abroad and that of foreign students making an academic stay at
UPF this year. As a result, around a dozen of contributions have
been received, which despite being quite varied in terms of scope
and contents, offer as a whole a significant contribution for
the future development of the Language Voluntariate.